002 Every Member Matters: Your Role in a Thriving Church
1 Thessalonians | The Anatomy of a Healthy Church • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 50:48
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The church in Thessalonica was under intense persecution.
Even from their own countrymen.
Paul says in 2:14 they suffered the same things he did.
Violence.
Mobs.
There was intense pressure from the outside.
The success of the church does not rely on the climate outside.
We hear excuses…
Nobody wants to go to church.
The world is becoming more evil.
We are living in a post Christian time.
Church was born in a climate of intense pressure.
The church grew and thrived under intense pressure.
We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers,
remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Each member must exercise a work of faith.
1. Each member must exercise a work of faith.
Our relationship with God starts with faith.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
Our faith comes from God but we need to exercise our faith.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
1. Each member must exercise a work of faith.
1. Each member must exercise a work of faith.
Faith give us confidence in God’s promises.
We are confident that God will fulfill those promises.
This makes that future fulfillment a present reality to us.
Faith is believing things we cannot understand.
We sometimes struggle with the idea of works because salvation is by faith alone.
This idea of a WORK of FAITH might even seem contradictory.
But good works are talked about all through the New Testament.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
What about Titus?
In Titus 2 (a discipleship passage)
Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity,
If we go to the end of the book…
And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful.
1. Each member must exercise a work of faith.
1. Each member must exercise a work of faith.
Don’t miss what Paul says: “devote themselves to good works… so they WON’T BE UNFRUITFUL.
What is my life? What is the point of my life?
What fruit do I have to show for my faith?
Am I waisting my life?
A work of faith means exercising our faith!
Paul is talking about the working reality of their faith.
For a church to thrive each member need to have the ability to receive truth.
Then there must be visible fruits in their lives.
Paul thanks God for the fruit he sees in their lives.
If they were commended for their work of faith or… living out their faith…
What were these good works?
That’s a question we should ask.
We talk about good works but are we sure we are doing them?
We are challenged to not be unfruitful - do we actually have the fruit of good works in our lives.
For a church to thrive, every member must be living out their faith on a daily basis.
Doing the good works that are in front of them to do.
Not to gain favor with God, but BECAUSE of the love that Jesus has poured out in our hearts when He saved us.
2. Each member must exercise a labor of love.
2. Each member must exercise a labor of love.
There is a connection between these two phrases.
“Work of faith” and “labor of love.”
God’s work of salvation is motivation for our labor of love.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
2. Each member must exercise a labor of love.
2. Each member must exercise a labor of love.
We live our lives out of our love and thankfulness to God and our love and care for others.
It is work or labor.
“Troublesome toil.”
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
2. Each member must exercise a labor of love.
2. Each member must exercise a labor of love.
“Consider”: to study one another, to investigate one another.
This takes a lot of work.
This takes sacrifice.
This means getting out of our comfort zone.
This means being intentional / laser focused.
It means we care more about our church than ourselves.
We are to build deep relationships with our church.
For the purpose of stirring them to love and good works.
This not me saying this.
Paul said this.
The Bible says this.
This is a command.
This is what a thriving church must have!
Strenuous activity for the benefit of others.
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
2. Each member must exercise a labor of love.
2. Each member must exercise a labor of love.
Don’t grow weary - “don’t lose heart” doing good - loving others.
We are going to love others and they are not going to return the love.
We are going to work hard and invest much with nothing to show for it.
We are going to get involved in someone’s love out of love and find out how messy its.
How hard it is.
You will hurt when they hurt.
Don’t lose heart.
This is one of those non-negotiables not service-wise but a characteristic.
People who are willing to labor for their brothers and sisters because they want to see them growing and thriving in their relationship with God.
We love Sunday Nights in the back yard, but that isn’t close to enough.
That’s an opportunity to start to get to know people.
Take those relationships to the next level.
This is one of the reasons it is so important to have someone you are regularly studying the Bible with and doing life with.
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
2. Each member must exercise a labor of love.
2. Each member must exercise a labor of love.
This labor of love is work, labor: it is toil that leads to weariness.
3. Each member must exercise a steadfast hope.
3. Each member must exercise a steadfast hope.
They worked because of their hope.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
3. Each member must exercise a steadfast hope.
3. Each member must exercise a steadfast hope.
They kept working because of their hope.
They were under significant persecution.
They kept laboring because they knew there would be reward.
They wanted to hear “well done”.
They were confident in their reward.
Even though they were under immense pressure.
A. The period of pressure produces hope.
A. The period of pressure produces hope.
2 Corinthians 4:17a (ESV)
For this light momentary affliction…
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
A. The period of pressure produces hope.
A. The period of pressure produces hope.
B. The process of pressure produces hope.
B. The process of pressure produces hope.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
B. The process of pressure produces hope.
B. The process of pressure produces hope.
Embrace the process of pressure.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
James says:
Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.
You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
Here we see the product of pressure.
We also see the period and process of pressure.
Paul says:
For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
We live in a new reality.
The reality is that this world isn’t the best we get.
The best is still coming.
Hope causes steadfast endurance.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
If we have been justified by faith then we can be absolutely certain that the glory of God will be manifest in us..
One day we will enter into a fully glorified state.
The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
We will reap the rewards of our labor.
This gives us hope.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
We often misunderstand Paul’s words to the Roman church…
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
C. The product of pressure produces hope.
The period of pressure produces hope.
The process of pressure produces hope
The product of pressure produces hope.
Questions for the week:
Would others commend me because of the visible fruit or my works of faith?
In what ways am I toiling troublesomely for my brothers and sisters?
What do others see in me: gloom and anxiety or steadfast hope?